[NI00208] Ref: Encyclopaedia Britannica English secetary of state during Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate. His voluminous correspondence provides one of the chief historical sources for the Cromwellian era. Thurloe entered politics as secretary to the Parliamentary leader Oliver St. John and in March 1652 was appointed secretary to Cromwell's Council of State. Soon he became head of a vast intelligence service that operated throughout Europe, gathering information about Royalist plots to overthrow Cromwell's government. He played a key role in the succession of Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector in 1658 and sat in the Parliament of 1659, but his influence waned after Cromwell's fall the same year. Upon the Restoration of Charles II in May 1660, he was arrested for high treason; his release was granted on condition that he provide the new government with information on the current state of England's foreign policy. Ref: Encylopaedia Britannica English Lawyer and diplomat, known as Oliver Cromwell's "Little Secretary of State." He was baptized on June 12, 1616 in Abbot's Roding, Essex. In 1647 he studied law at Lincoln's Inn. Under the patronage of the Puritan parliamentary leader Oliver St. John, Thurloe was appointed secretary to him and Walter Strickland in 1651, when they went on a mission to Holland. In 1652, Thurloe was appointed secretary to the republican Council of State. Entirely trusted by Cromwell, whose sole secretary of state he was for nearly eight years, he was also put in charge of an extensive intelligence system to uncover Royalist plots. It was said that Cromwell carried the secrets of all the powers of Europe at his girdle. After Oliver's death, Thurloe served Richard Cromwell as the government's chief parliamentary supporter. In 1660 he was reappointed secretary of state and served until just before the Restoration. He died in London on Feb. 2, 1668. His huge correspondence is the main source for information on the Protectorate. Maurice Ashley, Universtiy of Loughborough, England
[NI00213] ref: Wickham Skeith PRs, widow, bur. age 74
[NI00229] ref: "The Biography of a Victorian Village", being Richard Cobbold's account of Wortham in 1860, edited and introduced by Ronald Fletcher, and published by Batsford Ltd in 1977. ISBN is 0 7134 0787 5. There is one main reference to THURLOW as follows: "Mr Thurlow's shop. Here lives Mr Thomas Thurlow, near the Union House just at the end of the Common called the Ling. It is indeed a very small closet of a shop, into which two large persons could hardly be so accommodated as to be able to turn about therein. Yet it is to all intents and purposes a shop for bread, cheese, butter, tobacco, snuff, sometimes a piece of meat - generally salt pork - together with tea, sugar, thread, needles, pins, buttons, string, sweetmeats, and occasionally fruit may be purchased. Hither run the poor Union boys if they get a penny given to them. Hither also the surrounding poor - who can find little trust [ie credit] (instead of going to Diss with ready money) run for treacle, vinegar, salt pepper etc. Mr Thurlow has married three wives since I have known him. I buried his second wife about three months since and he has brought home another. He is a very steady man though a Baptist. I visited his wife in her last illness and when her child was dying she sent up for me to go and baptize it. The Rev I. E. Daniel was with me and went with me to the Baptism. So that here is an instance of a Baptist desiring that her child should receive infant baptism."
[NI00231] 1851/ residing with nephew, Thomas THURLOW
[NI00232] ref: Stew WATSON
[NI00234] ref: 1851 UK Census, SFK, Hartismere, Wortham
[NI00236] ref: Wickham Skeith PRs
[NI00238] ref: Stew WATSON
[NI00240] 1851/ residing with grandparents James and Ann THURLOW